Thanksgiving with Crohn’s Disease

First and foremost, I wanted to wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving! And, I wanted to let you know how thankful that I am to have all of you to share and commiserate with. You all have truly been a blessing in my life, so thank you!

Does anyone else get a little sad though, during Thanksgiving, even though you are truly thankful for what you have? I have been very blessed to have a relatively healthy year this year and pretty much thank God every day for that. But still, I find myself a little sad because of all that I have had to give up and how can you not be sad with all of that tempting delicious food in front of you knowing that if you eat even just one little bite of it, you will regret it for days to come.

We just had a Thanksgiving party at work this last Friday. I went to the party to see if there was anything that I could eat, but there was nothing. I ended up eating the packed lunch that I brought alone in my office at my desk. The party looked nice, and there was a lot of variety. The problem was that everything contained some ingredient that I couldn’t eat – pepper, Cajun spice, garlic, butter, and who knows what else. I figured that it would be best to not even try. I could have brought my lunch of the previous nights leftovers (fish and rice) to the party and sat with all of the people but hardly anyone knows that I have Crohn’s and I didn’t feel like explaining why I didn’t want to eat the wonderful Thanksgiving food. So, I was sad in my office – all alone. Oh well. At least I felt good the next day.

At my last job, we were a much closer group, and I would always make something that I could eat and bring that in. The party on Friday was with the whole team and a lot of the people I don’t even know that well. And, I just didn’t have time to cook anything, so I just brought the bread. To cheer me up a little bit, I took a fifteen minute break and read some of my book. At least that got my mind over the party and I could then get back to work.

For Thanksgiving, we are going to my husband’s parent’s house. They are making the Turkey (which they never put pepper on it because of me – I love them for that!) and I am going to make the ham. My daughter loves pumpkin pie so I will also make some for her. I may try a piece of it since I don’t have to work on Friday and gosh darn it I want to indulge in something!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kelly R

Kelly is a mechanical engineer working in Houston,Texas where she lives with her husband and daughter. She has had Crohn's disease for more than half her life. She was diagnosed right after her freshman year in...read more